First on my list of non necessities, is cocoa powder. Maybe it is really a necessity. One of the few items that Granddaughter likes for breakfast. Plus, there are so many ways to use cocoa powder to make treats, cakes and chocolate candy.
My Christmas present for daughters was a book on how to make your own pop tarts, fried pies, etc at home using basic staples. That's my approach to many food treats-back to basics. I do a decent job baking and cooking, and avoiding the additives that are in so much of our food today.
I had a great stir fry over the holidays using some of the produce from my winter garden. Fresh carrots, green onions, from the outdoors, and green peppers grown in front of the patio doors combined with the rest. Pesticide free. No worry about E coli germs either. LOL.
Now that winter is here, I will be going through the freezer, and canning up veggies, fruits, and meats for my own “fast food” meals in less than 30 minutes, heating up the house when it is appreciated, as well as adding variety. While I usually use home canned within a year, it actually has a 3 year shelf life, so it can be part of the short term emergency stash as well.
I have been busy ordering powdered milk this week, whenever I find it priced so that it is cheaper than fresh, to use for cooking and long term storage. I ordered the accessory to vacuum pack mason jars, along with some O2 absorbers, Mylar bags, and a decent heat sealer.
I did learn something new in my reading of some food storage back to basics books. Eggs can be kept for a year, if you coat them in Mineral oil, put back in the container, and keep them in a cool area. So I am going to take a dozen eggs, coat them in Mineral Oil, and put them in the refrigerator, and eat 1 every month, just to see what happens, unless someone else has already tried it and can tell me how it turned out? Best Wishes to all. Have a great day!
Personally, I use dried eggs for cooking if I'm living on stored food.
Long term stored shell eggs are not so good for frying (the older the egg, the weaker the yolk), but make great pastries. I generally keep eggs on the counter this time of year.
Easier to keep chickens. ;)
/johnny
Last spring I bought two to three dozen fresh farm eggs every two weeks from a local farm. I used food grade mineral oil (horse laxative from a local feed store) and coated each egg.
These were put into egg cartons and placed in a mylar bag with an O2 absorber. I used a small vacuum cleaner to pull most of the air from the bag and then sealed them. I had first tried pulling a complete vacuum on them and the eggs were crushed. A dozen eggs were lost, but I gained knowledge.
After five months of shelf storage at about 76 degrees (too warm) I opened the first stored bag and the oder nearly floored me. A couple of months later I noticed some of the bags were swelling, so I took all them to a local dump. Before I took them to the dump, I ran an egg freshness test. I opened a bag that was not swollen and placed each egg in a bowl of water and if one end of an egg rises any at all, they are not good for human consumption. Some floated. I now have powdered eggs for my storage.